the economy is picking up. but there is a real health care problem that we have to deal with at some point. it will take some revenue. you cannot just do it by magically saying that it will fallout of the sky. you cannot cut enough to get the debt down without talking about revenue. i think it they did a little bit here at the end of january 3. everyone gave the office and will not give again. host: this editorial from "usa today," de say that it is not a spending problem -- but "usa spend money. today," others, saying that it is. guest: let me explain. the average cost spent on a senior citizen in medicare is flat. it went up 0.4% last year. it is flat spending. the fact is that beginning in 2011, all the children born after the second world war, the so-called baby boomers, are coming on. when i came to congress in 1989 there were 35 million seniors on medicare. 30 million people altogether. we have 80 million people coming on to medicare. we simply have got to deal with the fact that the population is going t